A/N: A new and improved Kate Beckett returns to work.

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle – all credit goes to Andrew Marlow and the writing team for ABC's Castle; my thanks to them for providing a foundation for this little exercise.

Chapter 28

The main concourse at Amtrak's Penn Station on 34th street was in its usual cyclical madness the Sunday afternoon of Kate's expected arrival. The station handled more than ten million travelers each year. Between groups of trains, the place could be downright tranquil – almost empty in fact; but when several scheduled departures and arrivals occurred back-to-back, the place became a madhouse. Richard could easily see why it would be a good testing ground for Kate's new coping mechanisms. Richard had been informed she was booked on Train #140, the Northeast Regional out of Washington DC's Union Station. It appeared that the train was going to arrive on time. He stationed himself near one end of the concourse where he could observe all of the passengers exiting that track; that was if the crowds didn't get too thick. Kate, as usual still seemed to be the first one through the door – at least that hadn't changed. She was among the first group of passengers on the escalator; and as he had been told to expect, just as soon as she reached the top, she quickly stepped to one side and stopped, luggage in hand. Castle watched closely. Normally she would be looking for him or any familiar face for that matter, but this was new. She appeared to gaze about the crowd; not in a paranoid sense as if she expected a sniper to be among them; but rather in a tranquil sense. Richard timed the sequence. Just about eighteen seconds. Pretty short for someone just out of training Richard thought to himself. Maybe it would become shorter still as time went on.

The transition was abrupt. After the time-out, Kate began a serious scan of the crowded area, looking for Richard and maybe Alexis. Richard immediately began walking in her direction. Just as soon as she saw him, she maneuvered through the crowd as only trained police personnel could do and fell into his arms.

"Castle, it's so good to see you. I've never thought I'd miss somebody so much in just two short weeks", she sighed with relief as they continued to hug one another.

"Well, they might have been two short weeks to you, but the last one seemed to have taken up the whole month from my viewpoint", Richard replied, still stroking her back. "How was the trip?"

"Fine. No big deal. I know some of the bus arrangements are almost as fast, but I think this is more relaxing", she stated as she held out her train ticket.

"Well, let's get you home. We can talk about the details without the crowds around", he said soothingly. She simply nodded in agreement. "It's a beautiful afternoon, do you want to walk the few blocks from the subway to the loft, or shall we take a taxi?"

"Taxi. The subway can wait for tomorrow morning", she replied calmly. "Besides, I'm exhausted. The program may not have been in the jurisdiction of the Marine Corps, but they sure as heck ran it like that. We were up at O'dark-thirty every morning whether there was something going on or not. Even today. All I had to do was get my exit papers and board the bus from Quantico to Washington."

Dr. Burke received the final report on Kate's progress around noon the Friday before. He was pleased with the results; so much so, that he decided to allow her to return to active duty. With that in mind, he called Captain Gates and informed her that he was requesting a debriefing session with the Captain and Kate's homicide team at three o'clock PM. After Gates' grumbling and growling regarding such short notice, and that she had a precinct to run, it was agreed upon. While waiting for Kate's team to report, he went over the therapy outcome report in detail. He was glad that Kate had been truthful (for once) in recording her feelings and reactions at the onset of each phobia incident. This had been extremely helpful to the therapy team in Quantico in that they were able to isolate the exact stimulus with a predictable and repetitive emotion or physical sensation; and from there it was a matter of inducing a response coupled with the operand conditioning. Kate, being the fast learner that she was, had been making significant progress after only two sessions. If Lanie Parish could have known that the sensation was almost identical to the one Kate had experienced at seeing Castle's poster board stand-up likeness in the bookstore window that one September morning, she could have pinpointed the whole problem years ago. Little wonder why Kate always seemed to respond that her relationship with Castle was 'Complicated'. Lanie had always referred to them as 'Water Lilies' moments and assumed they were because she had the hots for Richard Castle and just wouldn't admit it, even to herself. Fortunately, the 'Water Lilies' moments were exactly because she had the hots for Castle, but later, when the PTSD moments surfaced they felt almost the same from a physiological standpoint. It made sense that she began to run from the man she loved. What torture. Dr. Burke tipped his proverbial hat to the team down in Quantico for effectively separating the two events.

Dr. Burke, who was about as tired of Captain Gates as the majority of the precinct was, kept a stern and formal demeanor with the team.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice. I know you all have pressing work to do. That's why I think you'll be glad to know that on Monday, you will be getting your other team member back" Dr. Burke began. Gates reacted with mild surprise at the announcement while Esposito and Ryan sat there grinning ear-to-ear and said nothing.

Dr. Burke went on to relate how the new Kate Beckett was going to react under certain situations.

"That sounds like an impediment to me", interrupted Gates. "I mean, if she has to do that when she's chasing down a suspect, I doubt any arrests will ever be made."

"With all due respect Captain", began Dr. Burke, "I've read dozens of arrest reports where Detective Beckett was the arresting officer, and I've never seen a case where she's hesitated. Now true, at the peak of her PTSD, she could not fire the service weapon, but the pursuit was not affected. And as you know, the service weapon issue seems to have been corrected." Gates nodded in agreement, yet still wore a dubious look. Dr. Burke turned to Ryan and Esposito. "I've read the reports like everyone else. If there is something missing in any of those, now would be a very, and I might emphasize VERY, good time to say so. Has Kate Beckett, ever hesitated to pursue a suspect or person of interest in your experience with her at the 12th precinct?"

The grins vanished. Each though about the hundreds of cases where Kate had been involved; even as a rookie, before ever meeting Richard Castle. After a long pause, they truthfully said they couldn't think of any such incidents.

"That's what I mean Captain", Dr. Burke continued. "Detective Beckett's drive during the pursuit seems to push out the reaction to crowds or surroundings, or that Mr. Castle might be doing something unorthodox per police standards. It's only after the task is completed that she focuses on the other factors. Therefore I recommend that you try her out having completed her therapy and report back to me after one week."

They spent another twenty minutes discussing their concerns and what if's with Dr. Burke. He reminded them several times for emphasis not to prod or disturb Kate during one of her hesitation moments. It could very well be that after some time, they would cease to exist; and wouldn't the period of time the team had to endure them be worth the effort?

Once again as the elevator doors slid open to the fourth floor of the 12th precinct, and Detective Beckett passed through them, heading for Captain Gates' office, she heard applause from all those present. There was one difference, even Captain Gates joined in as she stood at the doorway to her office and motioned for Kate to come in.

"Well Detective Beckett, I understand you had a very busy medical leave", she said matter-of factly as she looked over her reading glasses at Kate.

"Yes sir. None of it went as I had expected it to", Kate replied truthfully.

"Well Detective, let's get back to work. That case involving your team's abduction is still open. The boys have not been able to close it. Why don't you light a fire under them and see if we can get our closure numbers back up where they should be? Oh, and one more thing – No, make that two more things. First, Dr. Burke wants a debriefing session with you at 12:30 PM, so you'll have to cut lunch short today; and second, where is Mr. Castle this morning?"

"Ah, Mr. Castle is doing his other nearly full-time job this week. He sends his regrets that he won't be able to participate in any police work", Kate said with a faint grin, knowing that Gates was not-so-secretly jumping for joy inside.

"OK, Detective. Dismissed", Gates replied and went back to her paperwork.

Not much later, Gates received a phone call, and that was the signal for the Kate's homicide team to hold an informal meeting in the break room.

"Well how was it?" Ryan began.

"The first part or the second part?", Kate teased.

"I think we can guess how the first part went", Esposito quipped.

"Oh there was way more to it than you'd be likely to think", Kate responded. "It was useful to be sure . . . as far as my therapy is concerned. The second part was horrible. Have either of you seen the movie "A Clockwork Orange", Kate wanted to know. "If you have, then it was partly that kind of nightmare."

The boys said they'd find time to check out the movie. Meanwhile they knew they were still on the hook for not solving the abduction case.

"I'm surprised Castle isn't chomping at the bit to dive back into it", Esposito mentioned.

"Oh, he still is. It's just that he's going to let us figure it out for once . . . unusual control over his exuberance don't you think?" Kate said.

"Did he go to therapy too", questioned Ryan with wide eyes.

"No. He didn't. Let's get to work before Gates turns on the office radar", Kate finished, as she ushered them out of the breakroom toward their desks.

After lunch Kate made her way over to Dr. Burke's office yet again. She began to wonder if she would be the one to claim the title as the one client who wore out the hallway carpet leading to his office.

Dr. Burked welcomed her into the session room as usual.

"Well today is not so much of a session as it is a closure report. I'm not going to ask you to make any follow-up appointments at this time. If something presents itself, please don't hesitate to contact me", Dr. Burke announced.

They reviewed the therapy outcome report together.

"Do you remember some time ago, after you had received your routine psych-evaluation for return to active service following the sniper attempt", Dr. Burke began quietly. "You know if you hadn't covered so many of the issues with pretending to be OK, and with well placed lies, we would have had this sorted out much sooner."

"Yes, hindsight always seems to be a perfect twenty-twenty", Kate replied. "I remember a couple of double sessions where things were really going sideways. I had told you I needed to be alright, and that I couldn't afford to get all weepy over a couple of scars on my chest. And you had told be that the NYPD was going to continue to function without my input. Of course I didn't believe you at the time. But you were right. This wasn't something easily fixed. I just hope the worst of it is over. I want to be alright. I want to be a normal woman, having a normal relationship with a man that I love; and I want to be able to do my job – really, that's all I want these days. Nothing else matters as much as that."

"Kate, if you will without fail, continue to apply all of the coping mechanisms you've been trained to use, I'm quite sure you will accomplish your goal", Dr. Burke reassured her as they exited the session room.

When Kate finished the shift, which was nothing more than a big paperwork session, she returned to the loft and found Castle at his desk still squinting at the computer.

"Either you've been at that task way too long without a break, or perhaps you better get your eyes checked", Kate remarked as she stood in the doorway. He nodded.

"You know, I've been thinking . . ." he began. ". . . thinking we might throw an impromptu Halloween Party again this year. I know there's not much time, but we can still round up all of the usual suspects on a moment's notice."

"Well, what also should know is that the last time everyone came and could stay for the duration was due to some alignment in your little universe that didn't cause emergency call-ins for half the guests. You may not have the same good fortune this time", she said, reminding him that most of their friends were in the public sector.

"OK, point taken. Maybe we should discuss something even more serious", he said in a lowered voice, as if he didn't want the universe to know what he was thinking.

The universe cocked its figurative eyebrow at them as they found their way over to the living room sofa and began to discuss their collective future.

A/N: Well that's it! I hope everyone's stomachs recovered as the ride smoothed out. I started the first 17 chapters or so with an outline. Then the whole thing seemed to take on a life of its own from there forward. I also learned that it's a difficult thing to be writing your own narrative, and at the same time, be reading several other posts as they come up. Now I can relax and enjoy some of the other contributors' work.

There will be a third book in this series. Another AU. I will not let the Lok-Sat botched wedding as written in the canon go uncorrected. It's gonna take me some time to come with something to make that whole event worth writing about. And let's not forget the Alexis and Steve thing as well as the Lanie and De Torres thing that has been set up in this AU.

I hope you all have enjoyed this take on the difficulty with fixing Kate Beckett. Phobias have absolutely no logic, and the reactions, as we have seen in Kate's character, can appear to be just petty meanness and dumb excuses. Kate's reprise conversation with Dr. Burke was the recollection of what went on in Chapter 15 of 'In Death Do Us Partners'. It was my aim to show they had a cause and were not fundamental to her character. Castle, as patient as ever, even comes close to his breaking point. The meeting of Castle's women was a prompt (more or less) from my son; and as you may have gathered, I was going to use Alexis' graduation as the means to accomplish it (and still will), but the conflict developed so acutely I found a way to get Meredith in the right place at the right time to accomplish another task.

Thanks again all you readers, guests, and reviewers. Your input matters to me. I'm still a novice and I'll take help wherever I can get it.

Until next time . . .